Johannes Cabal the Detective by Jonathan L. Howard

Taking place a short time after Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Cabal finds himself absconding with an assumed identity aboard the maiden voyage of an Aeroship. (So…probably steampunk, then?)

Murder, mayhem, embarrassing dressing gowns. The best thing about The Detective (as it seemed like a standalone story and not part of the arc (as of now)) were little throw away lines that hint at Cabal’s past exploits: “Cabal could not have been more horrified if she’d pulled off her face to reveal a gaping chasm of eternal night from which glistening tentacles coiled and groped. That had already happened to him once in his life, and he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience.” (98) and “Cabal was filled with a presentiment and a strange foreboding that he hadn’t felt since the last time he’d watched the nightmare corpse city of R’lyeh rise, effulgent with the ineffable and fetid with fish, from the depths of the Pacific.” (123). We won’t even discuss the paragraph on 196 when Cabal made my heart hurt again.

I mean. C’mon.

Favorite quote:

“Oh?” said Zoruk. He sounded worn out and depressed. “And who would choose who lives and who dies?”